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Open Forum: Veterans Cemetery Comments

One of the great pleasures for me as publisher is to ensure that Irvine Community News & Views provides a platform for the people of Irvine to be heard.

Published on this page is a sampling of the many hundreds of comments we continue to receive.

The people are speaking up. Will the Mayor and City Council listen?

— FJL

We need to honor our heroes — at the Great Park — now!— Jackie Serna

Please approve building the Veterans Cemetery — in the Great Park.— Carlos Uy

My husband is a veteran. We live in Irvine. The logical and beautiful place to be buried would be in the Great Park. Also, I don’t want more traffic in Irvine from a new development.

— Lenore Rauch

I am a veteran. Irvine is my hometown. I need the Veterans Cemetery built! No more building of houses and condos. Enough is enough! Shame on you!— Robert Kawalec

Do the right thing for our veterans, and place the Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park.— Debra Richardson

Building this Veterans Cemetery is about honoring our veterans who have served our nation to protect our freedoms. Giving up the Great Park Veterans Cemetery land in a land-swap relocation to the El Toro Y represents pure greed. There is no peace or serenity at the El Toro Y. Let us not forget that the Great Park land was a military installation from 1942 to 1999. Marines served there. Honor our military by keeping the promise to build our Veterans Cemetery on the land in the Great Park. There will be no cost to the City of Irvine to maintain this Cemetery.— Robert Torres

I have lived in Irvine 35 years and watched how the original MASTER PLANNED community has beautifully unfolded. What has happened to our City over these past several years is irresponsible and devastating to our community and our vets. My husband was a vet. He felt betrayed and disrespected by his elected representatives. I feel so sad and disgusted that Wagner, Shea and Fox aren’t even supporting what was already approved and budgeted for. How does that work?— Terry Goldfarb

I am a veteran myself and believe the Veterans Cemetery should be built in the Great Park. The other arrangement is a complete sham.

— Frank Liger

I was one of hundreds of volunteers and leaders who worked endless hours to defeat the County’s El Toro airport plan from 1999-2002, with the final passage of Measure W. That measure provided for the Great Park to be just that — a GREAT PARK. The ensuing development became necessary, but the promised maximum community benefit for all of Orange County is what enabled us to pass Measure W. The Veterans Cemetery in the HEART of the Great Park, as already approved, is the RIGHT thing for Irvine to do to fulfill the promise to the voters made in 2002.

— Douglas C. Brown

No land swap. This area is crowded enough.

— Jack Tatham

I have lived in Orange County all my life. This used to be the greatest place in the world to live. I am disgusted by the money-grubbing developers who have reduced Orange County to a mini Los Angeles. Our once wide-open spaces have become housing tracts. Now it appears the new trend is high-density apartment buildings. I say NO WAY to the FivePoint plan and YES to the Great Park Veterans Cemetery.

— Elizabeth Wymore

We have been residents and watched our City develop since 1976 — 41 years, of which the last 5 have taken a serious deviation from the original Irvine General Plan. As long-time devoted residents, we are appalled and greatly saddened by the recent disregard of the City’s original General Plan, and its core values at the heart of our master-planned community status. We moved here for the obvious reasons — specifically, the superior quality of life created for ourselves and future generations. Now, we feel threatened by encroachment, invaded as a result of poor, unwise decisions made by City leaders that were fueled by greed and power. We urge people to sign and support the Veterans Cemetery Petition to save our City from becoming another Los Angeles.

— Daria Johnson

I am a United States Marine Corps combat veteran. It is a disgrace that the City Council would even think of moving the Veterans Cemetery from the Great Park, formerly a Marine Corps base, to a strawberry patch alongside the Freeway — all this so a developer can put high-intensity development in its place.

— Kyle Ankney

My Dad was stationed at the El Toro military base, serving in what is now the Great Park. He and his platoon buddies deserve to be buried on the sacred ground where they served, not in a place that’s more “convenient” for developer FivePoint.

— Marsha Jurczyk

I have already made plans, now in my will and estate, to be put in the Great Park Veterans Cemetery. I am a veterans’ advocate, training service dogs for veterans and helping with VA benefits. The Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park would honor the hallowed ground where veterans have served since the early days of World War II.

— Andrew McTigue

Please stop the land-swap that is a land give-away to FivePoint. Our veterans and military families deserve the Veterans Cemetery to be built as planned, within the Great Park, and with the generous funding by the State.

— Josh Byer

We need to take back our City and stop allowing FivePoint to control what belongs to the people! Allowing FivePoint to make millions while our veterans have to wait even longer for their Cemetery to be built on an inferior site is a disgrace.